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What you can learn from 700 people in a machine shed

My Generation: Loss has run tragically deep in one farm neighborhood this fall. Here are those stories, and the love that remains.

Holly Spangler, Prairie Farmer Senior Editor

October 25, 2024

5 Min Read
Aerial view of machine sheds and a grain setup at night, with a line of people entering one shed
RESPECT: Cayden Mahr’s visitation line stretched for hours, coming to its end around 11 p.m., with more than 2,500 people passing through.Photos by Luke Watson

At a Glance

  • Cayden Mahr, 23, was killed earlier this month when his combine hopper made contact with overhead electrical wires.
  • Neighboring farm wife Allison McEwen, 52, lost a two-and-a-half-year battle with colon cancer just a week later.
  • Shattering losses for a community remind everyone: Hug your people and love them well. Forget the stuff that doesn’t matter.

We filed quietly into the machine shed. Somewhere north of 700 farmers and small-town friends filled rows of seats and stood packed together along the walls. There was quiet conversation about how heartbroken we were for the family, and also, how’s harvest going for you guys?

“Pretty good til this week.”

Yes.

Then, the overhead door opened, and a Hiel Trucking semi pulled up, a single wooden casket on its flatbed. A group of young men brought it into the building as Nate Smith’s country song “Can You Die from a Broken Heart?” echoed out into the countryside. Those young pallbearers rolled their friend’s casket to the front, past all 700-plus people, and set it in front of shocks of corn and so many flowers and a Case IH Magnum Black Knight tractor, polished to a high shine.

I thought back a week prior, almost exactly, to when my husband called with the news.

Cayden Mahr was 23 years old and living his dream, farming with his brother Calen, running the combine when the hopper hooked an overhead wire. It was neutral but the one above it wasn’t. Cayden tried to unhook the machine but came in contact with both wires. He was killed instantly. His uncle tried to save him; he was injured but lived.

Absolute devastation, in a flash of light.

A Case IH Magnum 340 Black Knight tractor flanked by corn shocks, potted mums and pumpkins

Cayden was part of a sprawling agricultural family, with three different farm enterprises and a trucking business. I spent a few hours in the combine with his cousin Bridjet a couple of years ago for a story on her decision to farm. Just outside that machine shed funeral, polished tractors lined the driveway. The sprayer Cayden ran sat unfolded and ready to roll. A giant American flag hung from a crane, and trucks and farm equipment lined the blacktop for a half-mile in either direction.

Trade-offs

Like most readers of this magazine, these families have devoted their lives to farming. They know the risks. And don’t we all? Despite all the rewards and all the technology, there are a million ways to die out here.

I looked around at church the next morning. Clusters of farmers stood talking quietly, heads hanging down. Everybody thinking how it could’ve happened to anyone. It could’ve been their family.

We devote our lives to agriculture, and it gives us so much. But occasionally, what it takes away is more than we can put words to.

I drove north on Highway 41 later that week, past Cayden’s parents’ place and past the gravel road to another farm. In that farmhouse, Allison McEwen faced the end of a two-and-a-half-year struggle with colon cancer. Less than 48 hours after Cayden’s funeral, Allison slipped into heaven. She was 52, and she and her husband, Ed, have four teenage boys. We’ve farmed and raised our kids together.

It’s hard to imagine so much grief in one tiny spot, just south of Prairie City, Ill. These two farm families aren’t more than a couple of miles apart — a field or two as the crow flies. But over the course of 10 days in October, their lives changed.

Who they were

Allison came up to me at church a few years back with an idea: a fight-to-the-finish mud run with us and two more friends. “It’ll be fun!” she said.

We did it and “fun” is a stretch, but my word, did we ever laugh. Ali and I spent the last mile running and talking about how the electric shocks at the end couldn’t possibly be as hot as a real electric fence, right? But they were and somehow that was legal. And we paid to do it! All these years later, we’d still double over laughing about it, including the polar plunge. “Is that Jesus in that boat?!”

I had to sit down when I got word that she’d died. She was with Jesus. Right that minute, in a body that was whole and healed and free of pain. No more suffering.

So we turn our attention to the good times. A million county fair card games and snacks for our kids. The time our then-10-year-old ran up to Allison at church with the news that her heifer calved — because Allison had artificially inseminated that heifer, a skill she had thanks to her early career on a California dairy. They were so excited together.

Ali loved growing things: fruits and vegetables and flowers and animals, but especially kids. Her boys are some of the best you’ll ever meet.

Cayden was, too. Tall, blond and armed with a grin that could get him both in and out of trouble, he was born with the operator gene. If it had a key and blew smoke, he could drive it. He had a good family, and he was well loved. This week, they’ll harvest the last field he ever planted.

Aerial view of equipment and parking at Cayden Mahr’s visitation, held at a rural farmstead

Life is hard.

But people are good. And so is God. When my mother died from cancer 12 years ago, I remember well how people showed up. The literal hands and feet of Christ. So, people showed up for the Mahr and McEwen families. You should have seen the food that poured in for those funeral dinners. The meal trains that sustained both physically and emotionally. The photos and paper plates and stories and basic human empathy from people who care for each other.

Hug your people. Forget the stuff that doesn’t matter. Love each other well.

Because when 700 people gather in a machine shed to say goodbye, that’s what endures.

Comments? Email [email protected].

About the Author

Holly Spangler

Prairie Farmer Senior Editor, Farm Progress

Holly Spangler has covered Illinois agriculture for more than two decades, bringing meaningful production agriculture experience to the magazine’s coverage. She currently serves as editor of Prairie Farmer magazine and Executive Editor for Farm Progress, managing editorial staff at six magazines throughout the eastern Corn Belt. She began her career with Prairie Farmer just before graduating from the University of Illinois in agricultural communications.

An award-winning writer and photographer, Holly is past president of the American Agricultural Editors Association. In 2015, she became only the 10th U.S. agricultural journalist to earn the Writer of Merit designation and is a five-time winner of the top writing award for editorial opinion in U.S. agriculture. She was named an AAEA Master Writer in 2005. In 2011, Holly was one of 10 recipients worldwide to receive the IFAJ-Alltech Young Leaders in Ag Journalism award. She currently serves on the Illinois Fairgrounds Foundation, the U of I Agricultural Communications Advisory committee, and is an advisory board member for the U of I College of ACES Research Station at Monmouth. Her work in agricultural media has been recognized by the Illinois Soybean Association, Illinois Corn, Illinois Council on Agricultural Education and MidAmerica Croplife Association.

Holly and her husband, John, farm in western Illinois where they raise corn, soybeans and beef cattle on 2,500 acres. Their operation includes 125 head of commercial cows in a cow/calf operation. The family farm includes John’s parents and their three children.

Holly frequently speaks to a variety of groups and organizations, sharing the heart, soul and science of agriculture. She and her husband are active in state and local farm organizations. They serve with their local 4-H and FFA programs, their school district, and are active in their church's youth and music ministries.

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